Alii! (Ah-lee)
I’m writing this after a week spent in Palau – and am mostly going to write this stream-of-consciousness from memory. I hadn’t intended on keeping a journal of any sort, but at the behest of many who insist I should, and my own nagging conscience that, in fact, I may want to remember this trip at some future point, I decided to. It will be a mixture of stream-of-consciousness writing and more organized descriptions of my experiences here. As such, it may feel disjointed and scattered. I apologize for nothing.
This place is hot. It’s not so hot as to be unbearable, and the actual temperature hovers around 90F, but it’s also extremely humid – and it doesn’t take long outdoors before your skin is slick, either with condensation or sweat, I’m not sure which. At night it cools to around 75-80, which is pleasant, but my room traps heat and so I still find myself using the air conditioning nightly after a week. I will likely come to regret this decision, as I’ve heard that electricity is extremely expensive here.
It also rains. A lot. And when it rains, I mean as in a veritable typhoon. Palau does not ‘fuck around,’ as we say in the vernacular – the weather does whatever it damn well pleases, and physics and convection currents be damned. If it’s bright and sunny one moment, it only takes about thirty seconds for it to become a torrential downpour, and another thirty to return to shining, as if nothing had happened. This country has been soaked for the last three days, and extremely grey. The weather in Seattle had been shitty all year until I left – as I write this, my weather report informs me it will be 70 and sunny for the next week.
Fuck you, Seattle.
The city of Koror consists of about 15,000 people and 20,000 stray dogs in various stages of health. All 35,000 inhabitants seem to be, in general, friendly – or at least keep to themselves. The people are more outgoing than in the States, and will often greet you as you pass – verbally, not just the obligatory ‘whoops, we made eye contact, better fake a smile and nod and keep walking’ that is customary in the US. A random taxi driver, perhaps thinking he might score a customer, stopped me to ask if I was new to Palau and welcome me to the country just the other day. This is both pleasant and irritating; sometimes you just don’t feel like greeting everyone you pass. Still, it’s entertaining when people driving by in cars greet you, and you’re forced to shout to return the gesture.
There are dogs everywhere. Just everywhere. I can’t even tell which ones are pets and which ones are strays, as there are no leash laws in Palau, and both roam as they please. They’re all moderately-sized, too… no poodles or chihuahas down here, these things could kill a man. And they bark. A lot. If Jodie hadn’t given me the heads-up that they’re all friendly, I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s true, though: every dog I’ve seen has either happily trundled up to be loved or slinked away in fear as I approached (apparently the local boys sometimes throw rocks at them. Quaint). Rabies is non-existent in Palau, which is fantastic, because that means that all you have to worry about in terms of disease is leptospirosis, pasteurella, toxocara, toxoplasma…
There’s a dog who lives just beneath us, creatively named Boy, who seems absolutely terrified of me. He actually was very friendly my first night – but ever since he caught me petting his girlfriend (who, in lieu of knowing her actual name, Jodie and I simply call Girl, or Lady, depending upon our whim), he’s never seemed to take to me. Very cute, adores Jodie, won’t let me near him. Go figure. (In the last week, Boy has decided that I am nothing to be afraid of, and has even deigned to let me touch him. Imagine my thrill). Girl, on the other hand, likes to make Boy jealous by hanging out with me. This was fine, until I noticed a few bumps on her skin. Wondering when she last saw a vet (probably never, given that there is only one vet in Palau), I continued on with a variety of scratching and petting until I noticed that she had an absurd number of these little bumps all over her body. Convinced she had some sort of rampant dermatitis, and morbidly-curious as always, I pushed aside her fur to try to find one of the skin lumps – and found it was actually in her fur. Just a few clumps, I assumed, and idly pulled one out – and came up with a small, white object about the size of a jelly bean. A bit startled, I threw it to the ground and watched it crawl away. The dog was absolutely littered with ticks – as, I would find out, all dogs are in Palau. (Interesting to note that Kristen’s dog is also littered with ticks, despite regular veterinary care).
Sidewalks seem to be a new invention in Palau – road construction is ubiquitous, and sidewalks are being paved at a rapid rate, but they’re still relatively rare, so most people just walk on the sides of the road. Given the apparent rate of drunk-driving accidents, this isn’t particularly comforting. Fortunately, traffic isn’t terribly busy through the city. There are plenty of cars – given that gas is $4.60/gallon and minimum wage here is $2.50, I imagine only the wealthier individuals own them. I saw an older Celica down here the other day – that made me a bit jealous.
The city itself looks more like a really large town than an actual city. The buildings are small, most people get around on foot or by taxi, the roads are (mostly) paved but not smooth, and it’s dirty. That’s not to say that the city is unclean (though it is by American standards), but rather that dirt is everywhere. You track it in no matter if you were walking in the streets or through a field, and I can’t say for certain how it all got there to begin with. There’s also a fair number of bugs – though I haven’t had the issues with bug bites my room-mate has. Combine that with the stickiness of a humid environment, and it’s not uncommon that I wind up taking two showers a day just so I don’t feel so damn gross.
Taxis are interesting in this place – they’re more than happy to take you wherever you want, and all are very chatty and friendly, but rates fluctuate wildly depending entirely upon your race. Common practice seems to be to charge “rich tourists” $5 to get anywhere in Koror, though Kristen has informed me that the cabbies will happily take $3, and that is the “real” rate for most people. Even $5 is ridiculously cheap by Seattle standards, so $3 was just thrilling – until I found out that Vivi, a Vietnamese engineer I met over the weekend pays $2. Because she’s Asian. And locals? $1. (A cabbie recently insisted on $4 for a relatively short trip. This resulted in long argument between him and Jodie, which I finally ended by simply handing over the extra $1 and leaving – James, our usual taxi driver, never puts up such a fuss).
Just another reason why it’s tough being male, middle class, and white.
On the topic of being overly chatty, a cab-driver that took me home from the local shopping center, Surangel’s, had scarcely gotten me into his cab before he attacked me with this particular conversation:
“You from around here?” A typical, casual conversational piece. A standard but solid opening. Well-played, non-descript taxi driver.
“Nah, I’m just working for the hospital over the summer,” I replied with a shrug and a glance out the window.
“Oh, you’re a doctor!” A bit too enthused – probably planning on dropping a $7 fee on me since I ‘had money.’
“No, just a student.” I corrected, glancing back at him – by this point, it was apparent to me that conversation was expected of passengers in a Palauan cab, so I figured I’d play along.
“But in a few years, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“…So, you got a girlfriend or a wife back home?” I blinked a bit, surprised by the question, but shrugged and nodded.
“There’s a girl I’m seeing, yeah.” I replied, cautiously, wondering suddenly just what sort of cab I’d gotten myself into.
The cabbie glanced over at me with a sage sort of wisdom, a brow lofted and voice lowering a bit as if to impart some arcane Palauan knowledge to me. “Fuck someone here, then go back home.”
He seemed to think this a supreme idea – and if you can’t trust the sexual advice of a cab-driver who speaks pidgin English in a foreign nation no one’s ever heard of… well, shit, who can you trust? Incidentally, hepatitis is apparently rampant down here. I didn’t bother to mention that. Somehow, I didn’t think it’d matter much to him.
Weekdays are pretty routine thus far – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday I either work from home or go into Palau National Hospital to work on IHOP assignments (or, alternately, piss away time on email and instant messengers) from 8am(ish) to 4pm(ish) – like I said, time isn’t very concrete in Palau. The latter has the advantage of internet access (and it’s the only time I can reliably chat with anyone in the States), though it’s colder than our refrigerator and the cubicle we work in is cramped and uncomfortable. The nice thing about going in to the hospital is that Jodie, Kristen and I usually go out for leisurely, 2-hour lunches at nice restaurants, and on days when we don’t have Frisbee, that’s damn near the only other socialization I get. Thursdays, we take the boat to Peleliu and return usually around 3:30. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday we play Ultimate Frisbee – or try, rather. The weather has been hell the last week or so, and we haven’t played nearly as much as we’d like otherwise. The community college field gets muddy real easy, and not all of us are as hardcore as Jodie and I. A variety of random people join us on various days: Yurka, one of two local dentists (more on him later), Keith, a dive instructor and guide (more on him later), Kristen occasionally plays, James (more etc) and his wife Carmen, and then a smattering of locals. Apparently, an Olympian javelin-thrower played with us on Friday. Who knew? On nights when we don’t have Frisbee, so far we haven’t yet succeeded in reliably filling in the hours – we either work, go out to eat, chat, or read. Not terribly thrilling, really. We try to fill our weekends up with activities to compensate.
Yurka is Czech, and while his English is perfectly acceptable by any standards, he has apparently had some hilarious misunderstandings over time. A patient was particularly disgusted when he requested she do him an “oral favor” – he wanted her to open her mouth so he could look inside. On a boat, while playfully dipping a young child in the ocean water, he proclaimed gleefully to the nearby parent “I’m teabagging your child!”
That one was reportedly a chore to explain to him.
Keith is apparently American, though he’s been in Palau for 18 years, is dark enough to be mistaken for local, talks with a semi-local accent, and has a monkey(!) for a pet. He’s in his late 40s or something, and still easily the most physically fit of any of the Frisbee players – in fact, he organized it, and has been playing since the 70s. He also took Jodie and I diving on Sunday – more on that later.
For those of you who are curious, we make a five-minute walk to the Laundromat (why did Word just capitalize ‘laundromat?’) to do our laundry. It’s $2.25 to wash and dry, and though normally you’re supposed to fold your own laundry, Jodie has discovered (unintentionally, but repeatedly) that if you don’t pick up your laundry within an hour, usually someone will have taken your dryer. In the university, this means your laundry gets thrown into a pile on top of the dryer, and this is the accepted price one pays for not being on top of their laundry. Here, they fold it and press it neatly (and bundle your underwear together in some intricate, folded manner which I can only assume is ancient Palauan laundry lore) and leave it in a plastic bag for you. Normally, it costs $5 to get them to take care of all of this on your behalf – apparently, a bit of laziness will suffice in lieu of payment. Just one of many ways Palauans seem friendlier than Americans.
As most of you are aware, Jodie and I have decided to be married for the sake of our application for membership at Palau Pacific Resort, where it is $150/month for a single person or $180/month for a married couple. It’s just like my grandmother always said – the best reason to marry is for money. After extensive debate on who should change their name (an argument I easily won, based on Western custom), Jodie refused to change her name outright to Jodie Adams (how dare she). Her excuse was that it was “more fun” for both of us to change our names. I think she was just afraid she might grow to like it. The argument then became whose surname should be last, and thus the ‘root’ of the hyphenation – after an intense and prolonged bout of rock-paper-scissors (the preferred method for resolving any dispute, outside of open warfare), our application read ‘Jesse and Jodie Totten-Adams.’ She apparently wrote an email apologizing to her Totten relatives for her failure – the salt of her tears is the sweet, sweet taste of victory. Of course, this has caused unforeseen complications, because when either of us tries to pay with our credit cards, the name doesn’t match. Given our status as newlyweds, I don’t see it as unusual that our cards retain our original names, but it seems to confuse the hell out of the staff every time. Once we get our membership cards, it should clear up, but for now that’s a bother.
The resort is nice. Real nice. It’s where all the rich WASPs stay when they want to experience the outside world. It apparently costs $200+/night to stay there – access to their beach and pool seems to be free (or, at the very least, entirely unregulated, save perhaps by facial recognition of members), but membership brings with it access to tennis courts, workout rooms (which I imagine I shall never use), and a 30% discount at the gift store and restaurant. This 30% turns out to be a substantial sum, given the price of dishes there (much like The Cheesecake Factory, the menu starts off with a few reasonably-priced item, and quickly soars into ‘millionaire territory’ from there). Still, the resort is comfortable, the beach is lovely and provides open snorkeling, and they have wireless – so I can do any work from there that I could normally do at the hospital (which, as I have established, is less than comfortable). The only cost is a $3 cab ride (save for that one jackass who gouged us for $4, but compared with the prices in Seattle I suppose I should be thankful).
It crosses my mind that I made one grave logistical error in my planning for this trip. Rather than take my backpack as my carry-on, as I had originally intended, I chose to use a carry-on suitcase that came with an (amazingly) cheap luggage set either Mom or I purchased before leaving. It, I reasoned, had far more room, and I wouldn’t have to cram stuff in. This was correct, although I noted I was leaving a lot of empty space before I left. If only it had occurred to me to simply put the backpack IN the suitcase (or, alternately, if it would have fit, simply use the backpack as had been my original plan!) Either would have been suitable and saved me the trouble of finding one – because, in my wisdom, I had forgotten I would need something to comfortably carry my materials with me to the hospital (about a 10 minute walk). The duffle bag I did bring gets pretty heavy to carry over one shoulder and is a bit unwieldy, besides. Alas, I lacked such foresight, and I had to go pick one up at the local store. And I had completely forgotten how expensive backpacks were – the cheapest Jansport I could find was some sort of vile greenish shade, for $30 – and the prices quickly rose to $50+ from there. The kids section, however, offered a cornucopia of colorful and cartoony backpacks for $8-$12. My initial choice was between two strong competitors – Iron Man and Spiderman (though Spiderman clearly would have won in a fight) – until Jodie pointed out that neither would likely fit my materials. There was, however, a pair of backpacks for $8 each that would each easily hold everything. An exciting prospect, leaving me with an equally exciting and masculine choice:
Blue’s Clues or Winnie the Pooh?
Deciding, after long deliberation (even Jodie, who seems a pretty patient person, was getting annoyed), that a blue dog was far more manly than some rotund ursine, I proudly selected my Blue’s Clues backpack and went along my way, undoubtedly the envy of every man, woman, and child who saw me parading to work every morning with it slung over my shoulders. I even had philanthropic dreams of giving it away to some charity before I left (since I clearly wouldn’t be caught dead with the thing in the States, with people I might actually see again). Sadly, Blue quickly went the way of Ol’ Yeller – not a week after getting him, the zipper tore open and broke – and I was back to my old duffle bag. Oh, I had brief thoughts of trying to revive him, even cursed at him some in the vain hope that the zipper would magically mend itself, but to no avail (and the vet is too long a walk to have attempted professional assistance). So, after an exciting start to the relationship, it ended with a whimper after what seemed the blink of an eye.
Now I know how my girlfriend must feel.
After a week of tolerating (barely) my duffle bag, I finally went and replaced Ol’ Blue, this time with a far tougher-looking backpack. It’s camouflage, you see, so it’s made for guerilla warfare. And it has THREE zippers, instead of one – making it three times as effective at everything. It also cost $12 – logically, it should therefore be at least 50% better than the Blue’s Clues backpack. After crunching the numbers, I have also concluded that, at a rate of three zippers for $12 as opposed to one for $8, I have doubled my zipper purchasing-power. A strong choice economically, practically, and all-around.
Word on the street has it that prostitutes are easy to come by in Palau.
I suppose some orderly reiteration of events since my arrival is in order.
I arrived in Palau at about 8pm, Wednesday, after about 19 hours spent in various planes and airports. It gets dark around 6:30, here, so it was already pitch black by the time I landed. Unlike most countries, where you can see the city and the runway well before you land, the plane was over nothing but water until literally ten seconds before it touched down – I couldn’t even SEE the country until we were practically there. My classmate, Jodie, and Kristen, the epidemiologist with whom I’m working, met me at the airport, and after some brief introductions, Jodie and I caught a cab back to Koror, and our apartment.
The streets of Palau are not particularly well-lit, but on the main islands they are, at least, paved, with a fair number of bumps and pot-holes. Jodie tried to point out some local landmarks as we passed, but it was too dark and I was too tired to pay them much mind. After a 20 minute drive, we arrived at the Meda Gardens apartment building, paid our $20 for the trip from the airport (apparently a fair price, according to Kristen, although you can go anywhere within Koror for $3 as a foreigner), and trudged upstairs.
The apartment we’re staying in is adequate for what we need while we’re here in Palau, but nothing like what I would expect from home. There is electricity, air conditioning, hot water, plastic furniture, and a stove, so I suppose I couldn’t ask for much more. There is no television or radio or internet, but I packed along a lot of books. That first night, though, I just got home, cranked up the AC, threw down my luggage, and passed out.
I’ve been on a 7am-10pm schedule (or, as Jodie so eloquently puts it, the ‘old person schedule’) since that first night, and we woke up at 6:30am the next morning to take the Ministry of Health boat to one of the outlying islands, Peleliu. We were supposed to meet at the dock at 7:15. It turns out we really could’ve woken up at 7:30 and still been there ‘on time’ by Palauan standards because, as I’m quickly learning, punctuality is not highly-valued here as it is in the States. After a fair wait for the two PAs who run the Peleliu clinic and a “medical officer” (the Palauan equivalent of a physician, though I was later informed their training is actually somewhere between a paramedic and a PA), we took off.
There are two types of boat rides in Palau: gorgeous and wet. When it’s sunny out and the sea is calm, you’re surrounded on all sides by emerald islands, most of which are uninhabited, and crystalline waters. When it’s rainy, the speed of the boat makes it rain sideways, and the choppy seas cause a lot of water to spray onboard. This was, fortunately, the former, and after a pleasant 45-minute ride, we arrived at the docks of Peleliu. Another Palauan wait later, and the ambulance arrived to take us to the clinic.
The ambulance, a gift from the Japanese from God-knows-when, is rickety, bumpy, squeaky, and run-down. It’s also the only one on the island, so I shudder to think that a person’s life may rely on its timely and intact arrival.
The clinic, or ‘dispensary’ as they’re called here, is fairly basic – two offices, a ‘ward’ with two beds, a procedure room, a ‘lab’ which consists of precisely one microscope that I am not sure has ever seen use, and an air-conditioned(!) pharmacy. I spent a lot of time in that pharmacy trying to cool off. Normally, the clinic is run from about 9am to 2:30pm – today, however, we were staying overnight on Peleliu, so we lingered until about 7pm. Jodie, having been around for a few weeks, gave a few shots – I was more than happy simply to follow Montoya (or “Doc,” as everyone calls him) and pepper him with (I imagine) irritating questions following each patient. By the end of the day, I found I was picking up on the subtleties of Palauan diagnosis.
Everyone has diabetes. Except for that one little girl – she had impetigo. And the elderly lady with anxiety. Everyone else had diabetes. Reports of Palau’s struggles with diabetes and hypertension have not been exaggerated, and by the end of the day I was practically swimming in fosinopril and hydrochlorothiozide.
We stayed at a local hotel – in a room much nicer than our own apartment, I might add – for $30 each. Pretty reasonable, given the going rate of hotel rooms in the States. Normally, we would have taken the MOH boat back to Koror around 2:30pm, but we were going to an even more remote island, Angaur, in the morning on a once-a-month trip, and the island just happened to be about 25 minutes away from Peleliu.
Everyone knows James and Montoya, the two doctors, and seems to love them. Not surprising, since they’re the only source of drugs on the island. What’s more impressive is the way that everyone on Peleliu seems to know exactly where to find them at any given moment – just before we left the hotel, a woman pulled up to the building with her daughter, who was having some sort of allergic reaction, and insisted ‘Doc’ take a look at her child (which he happily did, even driving her back to the clinic to pick up some Benadryl for the kid). How she knew where we were staying, I’m not sure, but the island of Peleliu is only 4 miles across, so I can’t imagine it takes too long for news to spread, and when your doctor only comes by once a week, I suppose that’s pretty big news.
Angaur was very similar to Peleliu, except instead of 500 people, it has about 80 people and 200 monkeys – and it only gets a doctor once a month. Ironically, the clinic was better-stocked than the one on Peleliu as a result of its occasional use, but it was essentially the same setup. Jodie and I took some time, since there were relatively few patients that day, to explore the island, and went for a hike along the beach and through some of the back roads. Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I came back monkeyless. After a relatively slow day at the clinic (and a brief encounter with a somewhat kooky and lonely American woman who seemed utterly miserable on Angaur), we took the boat back home. A Frisbee game and a PBJ later and the day was pretty much done.
Jodie and I had already decided that we were going to dive this weekend. All of this weekend. The first day was my first ‘real’ day of diving – that is, the first day that wasn’t part of my certification training and in exotic Cove 1 of the Puget Sound. I was a bit nervous, worried about losing control of my buoyancy and rocketing to the surface, etc. So, we requested a dive with a bottom – just to make sure I didn’t wind up rocketing the wrong way. Naturally, neither of our dives had bottoms. We went with Sam’s Tours, which is one of the major dive operations down here – extremely friendly people, and they do a variety of dive, snorkeling, and kayaking tours. Locals usually pay $50-$60 for two dives, tourists about $120, we paid about $90 since we claimed to work for the hospital, though we don’t have a real work permit. We are hopefully going to get a letter from the Governor of Koror that will get us some more discounts, but we’ll see how that turns out. Either way, with rentals and everything, $90 wasn’t really a bad price, though maybe a tad more expensive than you’d pay to dive in Washington. They ended up giving me a buoyancy control device that was way too small – not sure why they thought I’d be the same size as Jodie, who’s about 5 inches and 60 pounds smaller than me, but go figure.
Our first dive didn’t seem to have a definitive name. They kept calling it “The Wall,” but we’re not sure exactly which dive site it was. The dive takes place along a huge wall of coral that drops off all the way to about 3,000 feet before leveling out – an enormous shelf. We, fortunately, only went down to about 60-70 feet. Other than some embarrassing mis-haps in setting up my equipment (particularly, some difficulty in figuring out which end of my wetsuit was which), we got in the water. I was nervous until I got underwater – I don’t know what it is, but there’s something extremely soothing about diving. Being underwater, without all of the sound of the surface, and with the weightlessness and all of the fish swimming about minding their own business, it’s pretty easy to forget that you normally wouldn’t be alive if you were underwater for 45 minutes.
Diving and snorkeling in Palau is like swimming in an aquarium. My father used to have a reef aquarium with lots of colorful and attractive fish and coral – the entire island is surrounded by fish that make most of those look bland by comparison. Despite my best efforts, I didn’t see any fish that had actually been in that tank, but there were hundreds of varieties of spectacularly-colored species, the likes of which I really couldn’t possibly describe in writing. If I can find some pictures, postcards, the like, I’ll bring them home. There was apparently a shark swimming above us when we first got in the water – I missed it. It wouldn’t be long before I saw plenty of the things, though. The main attraction of this dive was a lot of sea turtles. Slow and clumsy and goofy-looking on land, they move with amazing ease through the water, and they were everywhere. They were fairly sizable, as well – perhaps as big, limbs included, as my torso. I managed to impress everyone by getting my air to last through the end of the dive – it is apparently common for beginning divers to burn through their air much quicker than experienced divers, mostly because they move around more than they need to underwater. The dive in total lasted about 45 minutes, and though I was nearing the red zone for my air, so was everyone else, so all was well.
The second dive was a dive that, apparently, put Palau on the map as far as divers are concerned: Blue Corner. Jodie had been here once previously, and had apparently been surrounded by sharks. There was a lot of pre-dive information on Blue Corner, none of which I really understood at the time – something about currents, reef-hooks, swimming over top of the reef, coming down on the other side… it all made sense once we actually got in the water.
The first part of the dive was extremely similar to “The Wall,” in that it was a large shelf with a huge drop-off. The same shelf, in fact, as Blue Corner was only about a 5 minute boat ride from “The Wall.” The first ten or fifteen minutes of the dive, we saw much the same fish, the same seaturtles, the same… well, everything. The guide turned back to indicate to us that we needed to get our reef hooks ready – which consist of nothing more than a metal hook on a piece of reinforced twine with a handle at the end, some of which could clip onto the BCD and others of which must be held by hand. Glancing away from where I was swimming, I fumbled with my BCD’s pocket and got my reef-hook out, only to notice some movement flickering at the edge of my peripheral vision. Looking back up, I realized I’d drifted in unusually close to the wall. I kicked and pushed myself back away, then went back to unwinding my reef hook. I was extremely annoyed to find that the reef had once again closed the distance on me, and I realized that I was being pushed in against the reef by a current. Not just in, but up – and the top of the reef was suddenly visible.
The current got much, much stronger, and I’m not sure I could have swam against it if I’d tried – it washed me quickly, much faster than I could have propelled myself, up and over the top of the reef. We were supposed to take our reef hooks, find a piece of rock, and hook in against that to stop ourselves from being washed over the top of the reef and down the other side (which, the guide had said, went down to 300 feet. I now realize he was joking. What a dick).
“This is it,” I thought. “I have one chance at this or I’m dead.” Though I didn’t figure I was in any actual danger, the thought had crossed my mind. Turning myself about to face the current, I looked quickly for anything that looked like a rock, rather than fragile coral. Finding one, and slamming my hook down against it, I was extremely irritated to find I had the hook backwards. Quickly flipping it around, and stretching forward as far as I could, with the current washing me away from my chosen perch, I managed to latch on and cling for dear life as the current practically tore my snorkel from my mask, forced me to wrap the line about my hand and pull against it to keep from being washed away. The current was strong enough that we drifted, like kites, from our point of attachment on the rocks – and watched as the fish that had been startled away by our quick approach swam back in.
The smaller triggerfish all seemed to struggle against the current, as well, swimming directly past us as if we didn’t exist, and straining to make any headway against the water. They were pretty, but they weren’t what I was looking for. Within minutes of hooking in, we saw three large, predatory figures swimming perhaps thirty feet from us, seemingly unaffected by the current. Grey reef sharks, I was told later – longer than I am tall, and a fair deal larger, too. Before the dive, I had been worried about sharks. But like I said, there is something extremely sedating about diving – and I simply stared at them as they completely ignored us. Even the fish didn’t seem concerned by their presence – perhaps knowing the sharks were not hungry. A glance down at my fingers revealed that they had turned blue with cut circulation, and I had to relax my grip on my line, trusting that I wouldn’t fly away.
After about 10-15 minutes of simply watching, we pulled ourselves, hand over hand, to our hooks, took them off, and let the current wash us over the reef and down the other side – which, I found, went down to about 40 feet (not 300), and was filled with more colorful fish. There were also lots of tiny sharks – blacktip reef sharks, these ones maybe three feet long, and another kind of shark whose name I don’t know, which seemed to camouflage with the sandy reef bottom and simply sleep. There was one particularly huge fish, a Napoleon Wrasse, which seemed to be about 3-4 feet tall and 4-5 long, that took a liking to us and began following us around. It was sitting, silently, about a foot beneath one of the divers, and scared the hell out of her when she looked down. It seemed particularly curious about our dive guide, and followed him, just in front and to the side, turned entirely upside-down, and staring at him as he swam. He gave it a hug, scratched it under the chin, and after we’d all had a chance to pet it, it seemed content to follow after one of the other divers. We lingered for about 15 more minutes within this area, gradually rising towards 20 feet to make our safety stop (to release excess nitrogen from our tissues before surfacing). Not bad for my first day of real diving. We spent an hour and a half or so chatting, over beers, with some of the people we dove wth (two of whom are moving to Seattle in a month, actually), before taking off for home to shower and get ready for Kramer’s.
Kramer’s is a local (amazing) restaurant, with prices about comparable to Red Robin (food is one of the only things that is cheaper here than in the US) that seems to be the locale of choice for many to hang out and eat. The fish is amazing – though the fish is amazing everywhere in Palau – and the people are friendly. Saturday night, there was a going-away party for a long-time employee who was going off-island (which, here, means ‘out of Palau,’ not just off the main island) for a few months. They were having a special on mojitos – how could I resist? After Jodie and I had dinner, we played Foosball with Vivi (aforementioned engineer and occasional Frisbeer) and Riley – a Navy guy who, I swear to God, looks exactly like my classmate John Roberts, only more slender.
I really don’t even like Foosball that much – I just wanted something to play. I didn’t leave liking it any more. Shuffleboard? Fine. Pool? Great. Darts? I’ll embarrass myself, but sure. Foosball? Ugh. And yet, everyone loves this damn game. I don’t get why Americans, who could care less about soccer, seem to love Foosball so damn much. And why is Foosball capitalized, anyhow? Ping-pong isn’t. Pool isn’t. What makes Foosball so important? But I digress.
Jodie and I had planned on staying two hours, max – we were diving with Keith in the morning and didn’t want to be too tired. Four hours, a few mojitos and a beer later, we made our way home at about midnight, to be up at 7 or so for diving.
Diving with Keith was a blast. His equipment’s a bit older – perfectly functional, just not as shiny – but as a guide, he’s outstanding. He’s been diving around Palau for some 18 years, teaching courses, etc, and knows the place inside and out. Jodie requested to see a nudebrink (apparently, some sort of underwater worm that’s extremely colorful, that I’d never heard of before) – and he managed to find one that was, literally, an inch long amongst the rocks. He was also very attentive to me (being a beginner), and was able to help me reduce the amount of weight I carried on my weight belt by about half, making my job a hell of a lot easier underwater. The first dive was another shelf (‘New Drop Off,’ for those keeping score at home) – and very similar to the sea turtle experience I’d had previously – except that Keith managed to keep us underwater nearly an hour, without anyone running out of air (he was actually extremely impressed that my air lasted, since, as I mentioned before, beginners tend to run low quicker – apparently I’m just ‘extremely relaxed for a new diver’). After a long lunch, he took us to a place called German Channels.
German Channels is apparently one of, if not the only dive spot in Palau that actually has a bottom. The Germans occupied Palau before the Japanese, having purchased it from the Spaniards, and there’s a manmade portion (which is apparently much deeper, I’m not sure if people dive there, but Keith claims there are sometimes tiger sharks so I’m guessing it’s less common) and a natural portion, which is where we headed. The entire place is one massive coral reef, about 60’ deep, and teeming with fish. I was excited about this dive because manta rays were frequently seen in the area – on my ‘short list’ of sea creatures I really want to see (in addition to hammerheads, which are rare and tough to find but present, whale sharks which are even rarer, and dolphins, which may or may not actually exist at any of the common dive spots). The main attraction of German Channels is a series of ‘cleaning stations’ where various fish (including sharks) come to have little cleaner fish clean them off – and we laid, very still, waiting for mantas to come for about ten minutes. While we saw tons of colorful fish taking their little underwater sponge baths, we didn’t see any rays. Afterwards, though, we got to explore the massive coral forest – and it had tons of little nooks and crannies that we could swim around and into to check things out, if we were so inclined. The highlight of the dive, for me, was diving down to about 70’ to peer, upside-down, underneath a ledge of coral that I’d found – and finding a blacktip reef shark (this one about 4’ long) sleeping underneath. We also saw a variety of sea anemones (and their resident clown fish), and a huge plain of cabbage coral (aptly-named) – each piece about 4 feet tall and looking quite like its namesake, with tons of fish living in between the “leaves.” Last, we saw some enormous giant clams (Jodie later went to the ‘giant clam garden’ tourist attraction here on the mainland and was extremely disappointed by the size of their clams compared to what we saw) – large enough that a 12-year-old child could have curled up inside (though once the clam closed, as they all did when touched, you could probably only cram an 8-year-old in there, and you’d have to fold the limbs up pretty good – but who’s counting?) This time, we were down for about 65 minutes – an extremely long dive, and Keith was again amazed that I had air to spare at the end. He’s off in the Philippines for a couple of weeks, but Jodie and I are hoping to dive with him again when he gets back.
I got the basic framework for my project here hammered out pretty much first thing Monday – which puts me ahead of the game as far as IHOP criteria are concerned. I’ve also been working ahead on the various reading assignments and minor busy-work they’ve given us to do, so as of right now all I really have to do is execute my project and keep up with weekly journal entries (much shorter than the magnum opus you are currently reading) – I’ve been gathering various pre-made information on diabetes/hypertension and, hopefully, can put them together into some form of coherent presentation within the next couple of weeks. This will effectively mark the completion of my work here in Palau (other than the execution of my presentation), and will allow me to begin work on my abstract and poster (which is not due until after I return) – as well as enjoy my time here without it looming over my head. I’ll still be modifying and updating it as I go, but the bulk of the work will be done. The description of the project is a file unto itself, which I will send out to those interested, but it is essentially an educational information on healthy lifestyle choices for diabetes/hypertension.
Thus ends the recount of my first four days in Palau, plus my general impressions of the community overall. Future files should, hopefully, be smaller, reflecting the fact that much of the ‘background info’ has already been given, and more event-oriented. Given how long it took me to get this first one all written out, Lord knows when I’ll get around to finishing the second, regarding my first two weeks in the hospital and working.
Sulang! (Soo-long: I am forced to wonder if this word is actually of Palauan origin, or if it is merely a derivation of the English ‘so long’).
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